The change was evident and permanent. In , US foreign investment in Canada was 23 and British investment 72 percent; in , the figures were 36 and 60 percent.
By , US investment exceeded British for the first time. Imports showed a similar pattern. By , however, imports from the south were ten times those from Britain. The First World War sped the transition from one financial empire to the other.
A militiaman from British Columbia, Currie had gone overseas in command of a brigade, and had taken over the division when the Corps formed. Currie had learned on the job, impressed his superiors, and led his division with success. His report on Verdun, pointing to the need for good planning, troop rehearsals, the provision of maps and air photos down to platoon level, tactical changes in the infantry, and creeping artillery barrages became the new doctrine for the Canadian Corps.
Byng remained in command, and his key staff officers were almost all British. Few Canadians yet had the capacity to plan large operations, but they were learning. For Vimy, Byng had put his four divisions, to fight together for the first time, through rigorous training. The plan to attack the heavily defended ridge near Arras, a feature that looked out over the Douai Plain, a German-held area to the east that encompassed the coal mines at Lens, had been in preparation since the previous November.
It was at last ready to go on Easter Monday. It was one part of a large BEF offensive intended to draw away German reserves and allow the French to launch their offensive a week later. The attack began with a huge artillery barrage, including much gas which the Canadian Corps regularly and heavily employed. The troops moved forward, taking the objectives one after the other, though casualties were heavy.
The taking of Vimy Ridge was the one glowing exception. The victory received plaudits in the Allied media, with the Canadians basking in the praise. The German lines moved east a few miles, and the war went on as before. General Byng, promoted to command the British Third Army, recommended that Arthur Currie succeed him, and Currie, now knighted and a lieutenant-general, took over the Corps on 9 June His first major operation took place on the outskirts of Lens at a feature dubbed Hill His superiors had wanted him to seize the town, but Currie argued that Hill 70, a feature the Germans had to hold, was a better objective if the Canadians could take it, fortify it, and smash the enemy counter-attacks.
Persuaded, the high command gave Currie his head, and, in August, Hill 70 fell to a determined assault. After the initial assault on August After the initial attack, three days of fierce fighting followed, the Corps stopping repeated enemy assaults. The Germans suffered even worse; a rare time that attackers inflicted heavier casualties than they suffered. This reputation—and the huge casualties inflicted on the BEF—forced the Canadians into the struggle for Passchendaele at the end of October If he had to do so, he said, it would cost 16, casualties; if he was ordered to take the Corps there he wanted more time to prepare and rehearse.
By 26 October, the Corps was ready, its guns on the firmest platforms possible in the sea of mud that was the battlefield. Battalions lost up to three-quarters of their numbers; the total casualties were 2, after three days with only a small gain. The Canadians tried again on 30 October, moving the line forward at the cost of 2, more killed and wounded. Finally, on November 6, a rapid assault moved so fast that the enemy gunfire fell behind the attackers, and the Canadians had the ruins of Passchendaele.
The fighting continued for another week and the cost of this worthless victory was almost exactly the number predicted by Currie. The Canadian Corps would spend most of the next eight months around Vimy Ridge. It was not attacked during the German offensives of spring and summer , though some of the Canadian divisions were detached from the Corps to plug holes in the line and the Canadian pilots in the Royal Air Force participated fully.
Instead, the Corps devoted itself to training in open warfare. The chance to put its training into practice came in August and during the subsequent Hundred Days campaign. Brought south from the Vimy region in great secrecy, the Canadian advance cut through the German defences, moving forward a dozen kilometres. Tanks and infantry fought together, and the Royal Air Force provided effective cover in what was genuinely combined arms warfare. The next obstacle was the incomplete Canal du Nord, heavily defended on its east bank as the Germans sought to hold Cambrai, their last major road and rail centre in northern France.
If the Germans could bring their guns and gas to bear on the troops before zero hour, the effort could turn into a debacle. But, despite pressure from his superiors worried about its daring nature, Currie insisted the plan would work, and it did. The Germans now were in full retreat. First, there were enough reinforcements, most but not all of whom were conscripts.
He had more guns, more trucks, and more engineers than British formations, and his four divisions stayed together and fought together. All this mattered, as did the simple fact that Currie and his senior commanders were very capable.
So too were the soldiers, men who had learned how to fight, to use their weapons effectively, and to work together. The war was now in its final days. The Canadians took Valenciennes, a battle won by a single brigade after one of the heaviest artillery concentrations of the war.
Then spearhead formations followed the retreating enemy as it fled east, posting machine gunners to force the pursuers to deploy and delay their advance.
By 10 November, with rumours of an armistice gaining force, the Canadians were at Mons—the town where the British had first faced the Germans in August The fighting ceased at hours on the 11 th day of the 11 th month. There was not much jubilation at the front. The Canadian soldiers had lost too many friends, and now they simply wanted to go home. First, there was occupation duty in Germany. Two divisions marched through Belgium and over the Rhine to take up positions in Bonn and Cologne.
Efforts were underway to marshal shipping to return the troops to Canada but there many competing demands, and the Canadians were restless. There were sit-down strikes in Belgium and major riots in England, and suddenly shipping was found. The soldiers returned to a nation that seemed very different. The government in Ottawa was tired. Its leader, Sir Robert Borden, was overseas much of the time and worn out when he was home.
Promises of benefits and pensions had been made but were never enough to satisfy expectations; nor did the promises of farmlands for veterans work out for most. Inflation had raised the cost of goods, and housing was scarce in the cities. As the GNP dropped and war factories shut down, Canada did not seem to be a land fit for heroes. Thus, when a general strike erupted in Winnipeg in May , most but not all veterans lined up against the strikers, and the government cracked down hard.
Other strikes met the same fate; a government that feared Bolshevism reacted with force. General Currie and his officers had hoped to see Canada maintain a professional military, but there was no interest in this in government.
The Royal Canadian Navy shrank, the Canadian Air Force was tiny, and the Militia, less than popular among the veterans, returned to its pre-war condition. Even national memorials received limited attention.
The national war memorial in Ottawa would not be dedicated until On the political front, the most significant post-war event was the selection by a national convention of William Lyon Mackenzie King as leader of the Liberal Party. This turned out to be an inspired choice. King had remained loyal to Laurier in the election, and this won him substantial support in Quebec.
He devoted himself to winning the farmers, most now supporting the new Progressive Party, back to his side. A superb speaker, the able Meighen was the architect of the conscription bill, a key advocate of the Winnipeg crackdown, and a supporter of a high tariff. Those attributes appealed to Conservative stalwarts but not to all voters. King would form the government in and hold power for 22 years from to , when he finally stepped down.
Post-war Canada was to be Liberal, if not necessarily very liberal. The Great War had cost the Dominion of Canada 61, dead and some , wounded. From its largely amateur and confused beginnings, the Canadian Corps had become one of the best formations in the BEF.
It was hard-hitting, well-led, and larger than other Imperial units. At home, Canadian industry produced over a billion dollars in war materiel and the agricultural sector grew and exported huge amounts of food. Granatstein, J. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed.
DOI : Version 1. There were no official GNP estimates at this time. This dissertation has been published as Filling the Ranks. Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, , Montreal General and Governor-General, London , p. Canadian Conscripts and the Great War, Vancouver Canadians Fighting the Great War , Toronto , p. Waging War and Keeping the Peace, Toronto , pp. Selected Bibliography Ankli, Robert E. Cook, Tim: No place to run.
Cook, Tim: Vimy. While thousands of women entered the workforce to help at those factories, their numbers largely returned to pre-war levels afterward. More substantially, women -- specifically those related to soldiers -- were allowed to vote in for the first time. The reason was quite political: the government believed those women were more likely to support conscription.
Yet while the motivations may have been suspect, the long-term impact is now evident. The result was that despite short-term disillusionment, the war had a great equalizing effect on many aspects of Canadian society, as women got the right to vote, workers demanded better rights and wages and Canadians railed against graft and corruption.
While it didn't happen overnight, English believes there was over the long run "an economic democratizing aspect to the war, and also an overall democratizing element to it. Many Canadians understand the First World War as the birth of modern Canada, as the country took more ownership over its own affairs and demanded -- and was given -- respect for the price it paid at Vimy, Passchendaele and other battlefields.
But, says Canadian War Museum historian Tim Cook, there is no denying that with the conscription crisis and the schisms it brought, there was a cost to Canada coming into its own as a country. As we are signing the treaty of Versailles, as we are becoming a part of the League of Nations, we are a broken country.
Stay on top of what's happening on the Hill with Rachel Aiello's updates on the minority Parliament when it's in session. Duchess Kate shown papers about deaths of 3 ancestors in First World War.
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Hajdu looking at 'realistic timeline' to end First Nations boil water advisories. Retired General: Thousands with Canadian ties stuck in Afghanistan. Trudeau calls for clearing cyberspace of hate, disinformation at peace forum. Watch More Politics Stories false. Is there enough support for FN military veterans? Matters ran so hot that the residents of Berlin, Ont. Other fault lines were exacerbated by the strain of the war. The horrendous casualties overseas outpaced the Canadian commitment of voluntary soldiers and Borden's government felt compelled to introduce conscription in This divisive legislation forced young men to serve against their will and pitted community against community.
French Canada was singled out by large parts of English Canada for not contributing enough soldiers. While thousands of French Canadians served overseas, with more working at home in factories or on farms, there was no great desire to fight in a unilingual English army.
The wartime turmoil extended to those in the cities turning on farmers — English, French or New Canadian — especially when runaway inflation led to rumours that farmers were reaping great profits.
They were not, but the anger festered and divided Canadians. From the latter part of the war, organized labour was under systematic assault when it pushed for a greater share of the enormous war-related profits that did not make its way down to the workers.
All of these dark legacies extended long after the war, with French Canadians viewing English Canada with deep suspicion over conscription, while farmers and labour, drawing strongly from the West that had felt ignored by Central Canada, created a third federal party.
The Progressive Party was influential in propping up the Liberals at the federal level throughout the s and later became the genesis of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and later the NDP , along with a number of provincial farmers' parties that came to power in many provinces.
Canada's political system was forever changed by the war's unrest. There were other legacies. The federal government was empowered to intrude deeper into the lives of Canadians. Income tax was introduced as a temporary measure and then became permanent. Railways were nationalized. Canada turned to Washington for staggering wartime loans and became more fully enmeshed in a North American economy.
Most women received the right to vote, save for those in a few provinces and Indigenous women. The war created a new influential group of Canadians — the veteran. While there had been scattered veterans in the past, now there were more than , from this war.
They fought for rights and pensions, and continued to be a force during much of the century. Some of the 4, or so Indigenous veterans returned home having been treated as equals in the trenches to find that again they were wards of the state.
Many fought for greater rights within Canada, as did Japanese Canadian veterans.
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